


City Nights

by theinvisiblefangirl



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, ie somebody takes some amount of care of that boy after he gets into a fight, its an AU, its angsty, its nyc baby, jess gets into a fight, jess is still hell on wheels for half of it, lowkey just a fix it for a couple of scenes we wish went differently, the second half is better than the first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26238625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinvisiblefangirl/pseuds/theinvisiblefangirl
Summary: The reader is in her last year of college in New York City, when she meets a boy her age, sat between the shelves in a bookstore.In which Jess is twenty going on twenty one, living in a filthy squat in New York, headed nowhere good. Luke kicked him out when he failed high school, and Rory Gilmore turned him down when he asked her to run away with him. In this au Jimmy doesn't show up until later, and California hasn't happened yet.There's a fight, they fight. Nine months later they find each other in Philadelphia, in yet another book-related accident.
Relationships: Jess Mariano/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	City Nights

You were in your final year of an English Lit degree at NYU. The Fall term had just begun, a mad scramble of lectures and classes and books, a whirlwind of social events, parties, drinks, all the friends who needed caught up with after a summer away. You were glad to be back, back on the city streets, amongst the heaving crowds and the towering buildings. You’d missed the beat of the city, the energy that coursed through everyone in it. The anonymity. The promise.

You had dipped into your favourite bookstore, browsing the shelves for a copy of the one book on the syllabus you hadn’t bought yet. And there, sat between the stacks, was Jess.

A shaggy mess of dark curls and a t shirt going to holes at the neck. He had a sharp tongue and dark eyes that flashed with danger and the promise of excitement, as you bantered back and forth over the books that stood around you. Asking him out for a coffee had just slipped off your tongue, another challenge, a dare. He’d said yes.

You spent the winter together, the romance running through the fall term. He’d taken you to every bookstore worth seeing in the city, including a handful of tiny back alley holes you’d never even known to look for. You drank a hundred coffees together, on campus and off campus, sitting up in your flat late at night as you scrambled through an essay and he sat beside you, reading. Afternoons passed in the parks, sat on benches, talking until you ran out of words and sank into a comfortable silence, his arm draped across your shoulders.

There was something about him – an unpredictability. He never spoke much about his job, or his childhood – a terse response had stopped you asking too many questions. He only let you see the squat he lived in on occasion, preferring to stay over with you. There was an anger that ran through him, somewhere deep below. You fought, once or twice, tempers rising and tongues snapping, the air crackling with tension. But you’d apologise the next day, talk softly until he did too, and you reached an almost-resolution.

The anger was still there though – always there, in the background. Twined tightly with a hellbent streak, dangerous and self-destructive. He never planned ahead, rarely committed, preferred to show up without calling first, whisk you away to sit out on fire escapes at night to watch the city, to dive bars and underground punk gigs, the music ringing in your ears. He never stood in the way of deadlines, let school take its precedence. But he pulled you out of things with friends often enough that on the nights he didn’t call they’d badmouth him happily. Not that you cared. With him you saw a side to the city you’d never seen. With him you felt as if you were really living, caught up in the heady whirlwind of excitement that came with every call, every ring of the doorbell, every beat of your heart. It was addictive – you couldn’t deny it. You couldn’t get enough of it.

And he cared about you – he did. You could see it, in the hands that never seemed to leave you, in the arm that always wound its way around your waist in his sleep. In the eyes that looked at you, steadily, as if you were the sun creeping out on a cloudy day. In the coffees he brought every time you left an essay to the last minute, the way he memorised your go-to order from the Chinese down the street and took to ordering it without asking when he heard your stomach growl and caught you frown as you kept on reading.

You stayed in the city over the Christmas break, a string of excuses strung on phonelines and cross-country calls, just to be with him. A tiny turkey for two, dashing out in the snow at the last minute for forgotten cranberry sauce. New Year in your apartment, a cheap bottle of bubbly and tipsy kisses and starry eyes.

The year wound on and the weather warmed up, slowly but surely. The workload grew heavier, cramming essays in between revision for finals. Jess kept seeing you, pulling you out for study breaks and afternoons off, somehow always timing it exactly right.

Neither of you talk about the end of the year. You’re burying your head in the sand, you both know it. You haven’t got a clue what you’re going to do after graduation. Will you stay in the city? Will you be able to afford to? Your friends are making plans, filling in applications left right and centre. Your flatmates discuss it every night over dinner, you talk up dreams together, of staying together, but you all know that one day soon it will end. Perhaps you’ve spent too long around Jess – you stop planning. You enjoy every moment with every person as best you can, and leave the future to sort itself out.

You drag him along to a student party one night, up in some guys flat, a kitchen packed with bodies, drinks in hand. Jess is clingy, grumpy, uncomfortable amongst the college set. He asks to leave, breath tickling your neck. You smile and tell him just half an hour longer, please, I’ve missed so many of these lately.

One of the posh boys – too much money, too much entitlement, an economics major like the worst of them – says something snide about the uselessness of an English degree. Eyes flashing you step in, argue your case, a smile dancing across your lips. How many of those have you had since you started college? Enough to make it fun.

Only this one is too drunk. He takes the challenge poorly, slides quickly into sloppy insults. “Let me guess,” he sneers. “You slept your way into college didn’t you? Couldn’t afford the good school and the good grades? Took an easy degree like the rest of them. Stupid sluts. Does your boyfriend know you suck the professor’s dick for an A?”

Jess’s fist hits his face with a startling thud, catching him off guard and knocking the drink from his hand. Before you can react, the fists are flying back, the six foot football player physique making up for the alcohol’s sloppy coordination. Jess is fast, but he’s small. And he’s cornered.

You don’t even think about it before you’re barrelling into the asshole, pushing him with all your weight away from Jess. The guy is caught by his friends, held back from swinging out at you. One fist catches Jess’s t shirt and you pull him out of the flat, out of the party, out of the building and into the cool air of the night.

The two of you stand there. Your mind is reeling. Jess drags an arm under his nose, wipes at the trickle of blood, dark in the poor street lighting.

“Shit.” He says as he realises.

“Shit.” You echo in disbelief. Your heart is thudding heavily inside your chest. It all comes crashing down around your ears. The excitement, the fun, the thrill, the spontaneity, the dark streak of anger running through Jess. For the first time in months you see him again as you saw him first, that brief moment before he opened his mouth in the bookstore, a lost, confused, angry kid. In dire need of a haircut and new clothing, a steady home that isn’t a dirty mattress on the floor of a New York squat. You saw him there, in the party, fists flying. A smooth flurry of sharp movements as if he’d done it before, a hundred times, as if this was it, like caving into an old habit, this was how he knew how to move, how to be. You knew from months spent in your room that he expressed himself physically – but this, this was something different. And there was something in the way he let the hits fall, caught in the corner, that told you he almost enjoyed it.

You drag him back to your flat, protests falling on deaf ears. Push him into a chair in the kitchen, pull out the first aid kit from the bathroom. He rolls his eyes as you gently clean up his face, bruised knuckles holding a bag of frozen peas to the bruise forming beneath his eye. He won’t tell you, but it’s the first time anyone has cleaned him up after a fight. The guy deserved what he got – Jess would hit him again a hundred times over. And he’d hit him again a hundred times more to have you stand over him, holding his chin in one hand and a wash cloth in the other, even if it makes his skin crawl with the discomfort of unfamiliarity.

“Jesus Jess.” You eventually say. “What the hell was that?”

“What?” He snaps.

“That. The fight.”

“That guy was a jerk. He deserved it.”

“Yeah he did. But you didn’t have to punch him.”

“I did it for you!”

“For me?!” You’re both exhausted, tense, wound up from the fight, anger still simmering. He put himself in danger and you were terrified by how much that scared you. “I never asked you to!”

“Jeez (y/n).” He drags it out. “Don’t get on my back about this. The guy deserved everything he got.”

“Jess you could have been hurt. Seriously.”

“No, I couldn’t. He was drunk. I’m fast.”

“You were in a corner.”

“Oh hell, what does it matter to you?” He suddenly changes direction.

“What?!” You can’t keep up.

“Come on (y/n). I don’t fit in here. With you. With you and your smart college friends and all their fucking money. I flunked out of high school. I’m a screw up on a dead-end path to nowhere!”

“What? Jess?!”

“You know it, they certainly know it. Don’t kid yourself.”

“What? Jess – I – where did this come from? We’re fine – we are fine. I – what do you mean you don’t belong with me?”

“I’m trouble. I’m trouble – come on, everyone else can see it, don’t tell me you can’t too. Every guardian I’ve ever had has kicked me out, or just straight up bailed on me. I have nothing – I am no one.”

“Jess! No! You’re not no one. You’re not –“

“Stop. Don’t give me another one of your motivational speeches. I’m not like you! I’m not destined for greatness!”

“I’m… I’m not…” You can’t keep up. All these things come spewing out his mouth, with an acid tone of hatred that tastes bitter on both your tongues. You can’t tell if he hates you, hates the world you are a part of, hates every person who’d failed him, hates himself and the very skin he stands there in. But the vitriol pours forth at you, standing in his storm winds, unable to even get a handle on where it started.

“Forget it.” He shoots at last. “Forget it.”

Your door slams shut behind him.

You call him, the next day, during a lunch hour between classes. It goes straight to voicemail.

“Hey Jess – I – we need to talk. I… Come over tonight. I’ll get… food. Whatever you want. But… we need to talk. I – I’m not sure what happened last night. I think we were both… I don’t know. I’m sorry – I’m sorry that I yelled at you about the fight. I – Call me. Please. Just call me back.”

There’s total radio silence for four days. It’s the longest you’ve gone without speaking in months. You try to string yourself along with a hundred different lies. Maybe he’s busy. Maybe he went back to Connecticut to see his mom. A family emergency perhaps. Maybe he got hit by a cab, jaywalking. Maybe he’s in hospital – maybe he just lost his phone. Dropped it down a storm drain, left it in the park, had it stolen. Maybe it broke. Maybe he didn’t get your message. Or the one you left two days later.

A week goes by without a word. Maybe…

You step onto the subway on Sunday afternoon. Your eyes are focused on the empty spaces – trying to find a spot to sit. All of a sudden you’re hit by a familiar jacket, familiar head of curls, familiar face, like a freight train to the chest, winding you.

Jess.

You drop into the empty space beside him.

“You didn’t call.” You say, staring at your hands.

“No.” Jess replies.

You flick your eyes up to his face. He won’t meet your gaze, a barely held together impassive mask covering anything he might be feeling. The duffel bag by his feet catches your eye. It’s stuffed to the brim, the corner of a book poking out of the top. Pieces of puzzle start to fit together in your head.

“You weren’t going to call… were you?” You ask softly, still staring at it. He’s leaving. He’s going somewhere. Where? For how long? Was he not going to tell you?

“I… don’t know.” Jess mutters, half a whisper.

You can feel the anger boil inside you. “Right.” You nod briefly.

He’s looking at you now, eyes wide, something unreadable in them. You glare back at him, mouth set.

“I guess this is it, huh?” You can’t help snapping at him. “You didn’t call – you weren’t going to call. And now you’re leaving. Guess I wasn’t important enough to tell. Well – thanks for the warning.”

“I –“

“Forget it Jess. I get it – it’s always easier to go without a goodbye.”

The train pulls into a stop and you get up, staggering as it lurches to a halt. Your feet carry you down the aisle to the doors before you can even really think about it, still angry. At the last second the first spike of hurt catches, and you glance back over your shoulder. He’s sitting there, dark curls a mess, leather jacket on, watching you go. Just watching. You step into the crowded platform and it’s over.

It’s over.

* * *

Philadelphia, 9 Months Later.

_Come on, come out!_ Your friends had laughed. _It’ll be fun!_

You’d shrugged reluctantly. I partied enough in the summer.

_Oh boo hoo. You got a job and you got boring. Come on – its just one night. And its not even a party. It’s a literary open house. They’ll all be drinking wine and wearing turtlenecks – its just your scene._

Turtlenecks? You gave in. It sounded sedate enough, and you missed the artistic crowds you’d rubbed shoulders with at college. Alright, you’d grinned. I’m overdue a fight with someone over literature.

Night had fallen as you tripped across the city with your friends. You’d all donned turtlenecks, laughing as you did so, a hundred jokes about literary people batted back and forth. Walking along the darkened streets together, smiles wide, you were glad you came out.

The four of you tumbled into the room together, laughter dancing between you. The room was packed, groups of people drifting around, eyes on books, on artwork, on faces as they debated all manner of things. A poet stood in one corner, a larger group huddled around, as he read aloud his latest piece.

You immediately felt at home. All summer you’d avoided the bookshops of the city – burn out from that last push at the end, you told yourself. After four years of studying English literature, you could take three months off reading. What you wouldn’t admit was that they reminded you of him – of the hours you’d spent browsing together, the hidden away gems he’d shown you. Even the smell brought it back.

But here, in a new city, a new place, surrounded by new faces – it was time, you decided, to reclaim the real love of your life.

Your group fragmented, friends drawn away to talk to people they knew. You were drawn along too, introductions made. “She’s looking for someone to fight over literature. What’s your opinion on Jane Austen?”

You laughed and brushed your friend’s teasing off. “Don’t tell me. Let’s become friends first.” You smiled to the guy stood before you. He grinned in agreement. The two of you were left to talk, a knowing elbow dug into your ribs as your friends moved away with grins that said _Flirt! Go on! Flirt with him!_

But a moment later he is called away by someone he knows, flapping in a panic over some interview with a journalist. You smile and say no worries when he apologises and promises to return in a moment.

Alone and unable to spy your friends, lost in the crowds, you turn to stack of books in front of you. Slim volumes, pocket sized, you think with a nostalgic smile. Black cover. ‘The Subsect.’

‘By Jess Mariano.’

Your breath catches in your throat. Not a name you’ve heard mentioned in months, heartbreak buried in a different city, with different people you don’t see so often anymore.

But he’s here. Of course he would be here, with the books. Wait - here? Is he here? A small author, a small independent publishing company… Your heart suddenly plummets to your feet, leaving you dizzy. He could be here. Here of all places. Your first thought is to go. Leave. Go. What will your friends think? Will they care? It would be easier – better – do you want to see him? You can’t even process an answer to that question, head still spinning. He wrote a book. He left, and then he wrote a book.

You aren’t angry anymore. The anger lasted for months, a steaming, simmering rage that left you on edge all summer. Too many drinks on too many nights out, flashing lights and loud music, a hellbent determination to shake it off, shake it all off, live every single second and enjoy every heartbeat because you weren’t going to let him, him, stop you. Mornings of hangovers, headaches, queasy stomachs, tears you only cried in the shower so you could tell yourself the hot water on your cheeks wasn’t salty. He’d gone, left, without telling you, and your entire chest ached when you stopped to think about it. So you didn’t.

And then one day, a late summer’s evening, you’d detoured through Washington Square Park on your way home. An entire side of the city you’d avoided as much as possible, but in the golden light nostalgia crept in and you couldn’t stop your feet winding their way over to the old hangouts. They were exactly the same as you’d left them. But you were different, and suddenly very aware of it.

Someone had called your name – you’d turned to look. One of the fellow inmates of the filthy squat he’d lived in. The guy came barrelling over, grin plastered on. _Haven’t seen you in a while._ He said. _How are things? Heard from Jess since he went out West?_

West? You’d spluttered.

_Yeah, California coast. Didn’t he tell you?_

That moment on the subway came crashing back. No. He hadn’t told you a thing.

_His Dad showed up, out of the blue._

His Dad? But he didn’t know-

_Yeah. Out of the blue. Twenty years of nothing and then I came in to find them staring at each other in the middle of our place. The guy bolted. Jess went a week later – quit his job, packed up and headed out to find him. I thought he would have told you – he always seemed so keen on you._

Your head had reeled, spinning with the new information. Your limbs turned to lead in a minute, a heavy exhaustion settling deep into your bones. The anger that had buoyed you along for months, the embers smouldering deep inside, flames leaping behind your eyes, suddenly extinguished. “I… don’t know,” Jess had said. You’d run that one around and around your head for months. Suddenly it made a lot more sense. He hadn’t known – he hadn’t known a single thing. Never one for forward planning. His world had shifted on its axis and lost his footing. And so he left, not knowing.

“(y/n)?”

You turn, the book still in your hand. Jess is standing behind you, looking at you, surprise catching his face wide-eyed like a rabbit in headlights. He’s… grown. Grown up. The shaggy hair cut into a proper style, the leather jacket switched for a suit jacket, graphic t shirt beneath it. He looks older, better – better than you ever knew him. There’s a confidence, in the way he stands, the way he moves. No longer the scruffy kid with the chipped shoulder sitting between the stacks in the bookstore.

“(y/n).” He says again, softer.

A smile creeps onto your cheeks. No escaping this one. Your question is answered for you by the leap in your heart. Yes, you want to see him.

“So, this is where the great Kerouac ended up?”

His lips twist into a lopsided grin, and your chest seizes. You missed that smile.

“New York got expensive.” He says. Jess says. Jess. He’s standing beside you, both facing a piece of art hung on the wall. You’re a confused wash of emotions, trying desperately to hide the way your hands shake. Hoping to heaven that you won’t fall apart, right there and then, because you feel in serious danger of doing so.

“Tell me about it.” You smile.

“What brings you to Philly?” He turns towards you, looks at you with those dark eyes. Looks at you as if he still can’t quite believe you’re there.

“I got a job – here.”

“Graduated?”

“Yes. Of course.”

The conversation is stilted. You’re nervous. You’ve never known him nervous, and he’s not exactly – uneasy perhaps.

“I need a smoke.” Jess says. “Coming?”

Against your better judgement, you nod. He guides you through the crowds with a gentle hand on your elbow, your brain spinning out of control. Up the stairs – up the stairs?! He disappears into a bedroom, reappears a second later with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and a smile. You follow him out onto a fire escape and he sits, legs dangling through the fence. The noise of the open house drifts up from down below. In front of you the city stretches out, a thousand lights twinkling in the darkness.

You take a seat beside him.

“Can I have one?” You ask.

Jess raises an eyebrow and looks at you for a moment. “You sure?”

You nod. “Yes.”

He watches you as you pull a cigarette from the packet in his hand, and light it with his lighter, a brief glow of orange flickering on your face, the palm of the hand cupped around it. You exhale and the smoke curls out into the night air. He lights his own, and you sit in silence for a moment.

“This is new.” He says.

You shrug. “Things change. Nine months is a long time.”

Jess exhales. “I went to see my dad.”

You stay silent and let him talk.

“He lives out in California. Finally came back from that diaper run, the day before that party. I… I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I went anyway.”

“How… was it?” You ask tentatively, watching him.

Jess shrugs, takes another drag of his cigarette, and blows the smoke out into the night.

“It was. I only stayed a month. Travelled around a bit after that. Wound up here.”

You nod. He never was one for talking, but you could guess, from the tension across his shoulders and the eyes that wouldn’t meet yours that it hadn’t been great. Had it ever with Jess?

“And then you wrote a book?”

A smile creeps onto his face then and he turns to look at you. “Yeah.”

You can’t help but smile back. “That’s amazing Jess – it really is.”

“Read it before you get too jazzed about it.”

“I will – I will.” You say. You mean it.

He chuckles. “So what about you? You graduate?”

You nod. “We graduated.”

He smiles. “Top of the class?”

“Not nearly. But I did okay. Made it in the end.”

“And then?”

“And then we had three months left on the lease. So we stayed in the city for the summer. Spent our days applying to every job we came across, in every place we could think of. New York, London, LA, Boston – Jo even tried a place in Sweden. Interview after interview.”

“You got them all, I bet.”

“Not even half. Hell, took me a month just to find a summer job in the city. Cleaning in a hotel. And then they fired me three weeks in.” You took another drag on the cigarette.

Jess raised his eyebrows. “No Maid in Manhattan love story then?” The sharp comment was undercut by a tension. He had asked. You’d wondered too – about him.

“You know that film?!”

Jess shrugged. “Sasha liked a rom com. I didn’t get a say in what we watched.”

You nod. “She’s got good taste.” You both smile fondly, thinking of debates you’d had, round and round and round, Nora Ephron, John Hughes, all the classic rom coms you loved.

There's a pause before you admit it.

“There were no love stories.”

Jess looks at you, but your eyes are cast away, looking out across the city.

“Not even the poet’s love for the city in summer.”

“Well even the poets know the heat gets unbearable.” He gets a half smile for that comment.

“So, what did you do, for months on end, unemployed and single?” He asks boldly.

You look at him then. “We ran wild. Blew every last dollar on drinks and nights out, running from both our futures and our ghosts.”

He looks at you, watches the shadows of the summer shift behind your eyes. “We both grew up, Jess.” You whisper. “The summer was hell. I ran until I could run no further, and then I turned the page. I came here. Started over. Moved on.”

“The summer was hell.” He repeats. “I ran until I ran out of land and met the sea. I hate the beach – did you know that? And then I ran back. Wound up here. Started over.”

“Moved on?” You ask, breathlessly.

“I couldn’t move on from you.”

There’s a pregnant pause, the air thick between you. Jess leans towards you slightly. Almost unconsciously you lean in towards him, the space between you dissolving as you’re drawn in, as if the great magnetic force of gravity was drawing you towards him, the earth.

“No love stories?” You whisper into the infinite void of the fractions of inches between you.

“No love stories.” He breathes. And then his lips are on yours, and its like a puzzle piece falling into perfect place. You wonder how you ever lived without this.


End file.
